The delicate poetry of us
by Swamy
Summary: Post 5x01. A few days after the fight Dorota calls Dan because she's worried about Blair. Unbetaed.
1. Chapter 1

_Note: I don't have a beta so I must apologize to you for any error – surely many – you can find in this story; if anyone of you has experience as a beta and wants to help me out please just contact me. I wrote this chapter out of impulse, I'm not promising anything but I hope I will be able to update it soon._

**The delicate poetry of us.**

The polish accent had quite surprised him when he had answered his phone. Their only interaction were the usual pleasantries and the suspicious looks she gave anyone who orbited around Blair; looks that later, at least toward him, had became less hostile and more puzzling. Dan was relived, and flattered, to have passed her test but most of the time he found himself trying to guess what she thought of him.

"Mr Dan I am sorry to disturb you."

"No, no, it's not a problem Dorota."

She had more manners then many other people calling him, and she was the closest thing Blair had to a mother so the call wasn't really a bother. But part of him was trying to suggest him the worst causes for that unusual event.

"It is about Miss Blair."

Five words pushed him to his feet. The book fell out from his lap and he held the phone with one hand looking outside the window like he could find the answer between the lights of Brooklyn.

"Nothing happened but Miss Blair not eating." He could easily guess that the wedding was making nervous enough to lose appetite, or that she was worried the dress wouldn't fit her, but he was sure Dorota wouldn't be calling for a futile reason. "She not listen to me," the woman insisted, the worry was clear in her voice "but she listen to Mr Dan."

"I'm not sure about this." He confessed with a low tone.

"Please, you talk to her. No one here for my Miss."

He doubted she would have listened to him right now. She was still angry at him about what had happened with Louis, but he couldn't refuse and he didn't really wanted to. If that helped her feelings and her wounded pride he could let her lash out on him until she wasn't ready to forgive him and let him be there for her. After all, that's all he was trying to do from the beginning.

"Miss Blair needs you."

Four simple words kicked him out of his loft on a Thursday evening, leaving him stuck in the traffic for twenty minutes until he abandoned his dad's care in the first parking spot he could find and made him walk around the city under the pouring rain so that he could make her insult him for being so stupid to spend the night poking into her alimentary habits.

He didn't mind the rain, and he didn't pay any attention to the people that moved aside to not hit him with their umbrellas.

This kind of weather made him always think about fresh starts, new possibilities and forgiveness; like God was erasing people's wrongs and everything bad was undone by the time rain stopped. Blair would have found the mere idea ridiculous. He could picture her with her untouchable aura, her red, heart-shaped, evilly perfect mouth labeling his dramatic attitude with the same tone she used to comments about girls wearing last season's item of clothing.

Dorota's eyes went a little wide seeing him there, completely soaked and he begged her with his eyes to not make any comment about his state while he gave her his jacket. He imagined she found him pathetic - he himself felt that way hearing the sound of his wet shoes on the parquet, but he was far from thinking Dorota could call him just because Blair had skipped one meal so he couldn't really manage to care about the maid's opinion of him.

She was impressed, and accompanied him at Blair's door with a warm respect before leaving.

He knocked, calling her "Blair"

"Humphrey?" her voice was surprised but still irritated "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you"

"You can take your excuses for your horrible behavior and give them to someone who cares"

He sighed, leaning against the doorpost with one hand and brushing his cold mouth with the other.

"It's not about that, even if an apology is necessary"

"What do you want?"

"Can I come in?" his hand was already on the knob but she denied him.

"Blair, I'm worried about you," he insisted "Dorota told me you're not eating much."

"Dorota thinks that anyone who's not her size is about to die from starvation!" her witty reply made him smile to the closed door, and Dan shook his head pressing his forehead to the white painted wood.

"And why would she tell you of all people?" her voice had a tone he knew too well. It was the insulted one. She used it whenever she saw him or a stallholder, at least until the moment they found a way to coexist and she found a way into his (now mess of a) heart. That tone had always bothered him. Now he found it endearing – couldn't someone just kill him and put him out of his misery?

"I don't know. Maybe she thought that you would listen to me" he suggested.

"The woman is gone senile!"

"You can tell her yourself, but Blair, now I am worried. Can't we talk?"

"It's not the moment." and he pictured her draped over the bed, surrounded by soft pillows, enjoying the warmth of the covers while he was freezing, or maybe just brushing her brown hair while sitting in front of the mirror; and for a moment he forgot why he was standing there outside her door begging like he was trying to get a private hearing from the queen. Which was pretty much what he was doing, really. "I don't want to see you." Her words were spoken unkindly and he just took the blow graciously.

Dan knew the script of this movie. She didn't want to see him, she didn't own him anything. They weren't even friends. Because a road trip, forty-two movies, one hundred discussions , two kisses he couldn't erase from his brain or wash away from his mouth (which had all the time now this unbearable hunger for her sweet taste) and one stupid, crazy, ruined heart didn't make them friends. All that only made them something indefinable, of no importance: Blair Waldorf, future Princess of Monaco, and Dan Humphrey, the guy that can love her only if he keeps his mouth shut about it.

He needed to be rational about this. He couldn't do much but walk away, hoping Dorota's worry was unnecessary, find himself a cab and go back to pick his car so that he could come back to the loft and take a hot shower before he could freeze to death. Instead he sat there in the hallway, his elbow on his knees while he tried his best to ignore the cold.

He didn't know why he couldn't leave her. If he was worried or he wanted her to forgive her. Or if he just missed her.

But he was so deep in his thoughts that, several minutes later, he almost didn't realize the door was opening.

She looked down at him astonished before remembering that she was supposed to be mad at him.

"I told you I didn't want to see you!" she insisted, scanning him with her glassy eyes. Dan stood, looking at her.

"Yeah, I heard that. But you didn't say anything about spending the night outside your door." He tried to make it sound like a joke but her faint smile made him doubt the outcome.

"So next time I tell you to go to hell do I need to give you directions?" she asked. He knew well enough to hear the change in her voice and to recognize the last assault before the capitulation.

"I would be indebted to you." he replied ironically, with a smile.

Blair was almost on the point to smile to him when she arched her eyebrow looking at him like he was a homeless asking for money.

"You are soaking wet!" it almost sounded like an accusation, and for a moment Dan tried to come up with an apology for his conditions.

"It's raining outside." he offered weakly.

"I know you're from Brooklyn but can't you afford an umbrella?" Blair asked like it was the most idiotic conversation she had in a while.

"It wasn't raining when I left my place. When it started raining I got stuck in the traffic so I left the car and walked here."

The moment Blair looked at him, standing so close, Dan had the impression that her eyes had grown soft for a brief moment. He couldn't be sure because she turned her eyes away and when she looked at him again that tenderness had disappeared.

"Since you seem to be the brightest bulb in the box and I can't count on your sense of self-preservation, I have to suggest that you take a hot shower before you collapse on my parquet."

"I heard it's very delicate, an unconscious body that falls on it could give it a scratch. To not mention the damage that the water can cause." He said, ironically.

Blair was about to make a new remark when she shielded herself with both hands turning her face "Oh please, don't sneeze on-"

He turned, covering his nose and mouth with a fist.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be. I have a royal wedding to worry about and your germs are completely inopportune."

"No" he explained, looking at her with soft, apologetic eyes "I'm sorry about what happened with Louis. I wasn't trying to lie to you or ruin your relationship."

"Then what were you trying to do?"

He gasped trying to catch words he could not offer her.

"Following your lead, I suppose. I am told I am good at that."

Blair smiled to him - the smile curved her pretty mouth and reached her rich brown eyes, and suddenly he didn't feel so cold anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

"Good. For once in his life he'll be wearing something I can approve of" Blair said examining the clothes Dorota had in her hands.

She tried to take them but the maid just held them, looking at her confused.

"I give clothes to Lonely Boy" she suggested.

"He's my guest, _I'm_ going to give him the clothes." Blair had on her face the slave driving expression Dorota knew too well, and she did let go with reluctance. The girl gave her an innocent smile but she wasn't going to let herself be fooled. Dorota knew her well, from many year, she knew that face. That was the face of when she was up to something. It was never a good sign.

"Don't you have work to do or something? Isn't Vanya waiting for you?" she asked "Shoo!" she told her motioning with her hand to go away.

"Good night, Miss Blair." the maid said looking at her suspiciously.

"Night, Dorota." Blair replied turning on her heels to go to the guest room.

She entered without bothering to knock and called Dan from outside the bathroom.

"Humphrey?"

She pressed her ear against the door but couldn't make out his words, so she opened the door slightly to peer inside. The hot water had filled the room with vapor and she heard clearly the sound of the water falling against the tiles and against the glass-door which was half opened. And against Dan.

Her hand tightened around the knot while she tried to convince herself to close the door before it was too late. Clearly her arguments weren't convincing because her eyes moved from his neck to his shoulders, to his back to his ass, noticing the line of his muscles along his body. Well, she was trying to be helpful but accidentally – more or less - she had stumbled upon Dan having a shower and she was curious to know what was so appealing about Humphrey that Serena couldn't stay away from him for too long. That was all. And she had to admit he was good looking. Okay, he was handsome, and athletic but – _oh._

He had his face raised to meet the water with closed eyes so her shame remained private when she closed the door after he had turned around and the clothes had fell from her hands. Yes, she had wanted a peek, but not for the whole show – which you could get spying on people that are having a shower while totally oblivious to a sudden voyeurism, she considered.

Blair took the clothes from the floor to put them on the bed.

"Oh please, it's nothing I haven't seen before." she told herself, bothered by her embarrassment.

She was a grown woman, this kind of things couldn't shake her. She had seen him shirtless before, and all he could stimulate in her was a sense of vomit. Really. She wasn't even a little bit attracted to him. So, no big deal. Well, the _deal _wasn't in the average size either. Oh, like she could care! She was about to marry a prince, so Dan Humphrey was the last thing on her mind. He didn't even classify.

She turned around, breathing in slowly and reached for the door again, knocking "Your clothes are here."

This time he opened the door enough that he could look her in the eyes – and she could give a look to his wet chest and the white robe around his lap.

"Did you say something?" he asked her.

Blair offered a tight smile trying to keep her eyes from wandering around "Clothes. Good ones. A first for you."

"Thanks." he replied rolling his eyes "Are you alright? You look flushed." He observed, and even if he wasn't implying anything she felt nervous.

"I'm hot," she replied fast, regretting the poor choice of words immediately "The vapor."

"Oh," he nodded "Yes, I really needed this."

Truthfully the vapor was coming out of the bathroom from the open door and she was being surrounded by hot air that smelled like soap and skin. His skin. And she felt weak for a moment.

"I'll let you dress"

He thanked her once again, while she muttered soundless curses under her breath.

All she had wanted was his reassuring company; to enjoy for a while his protectiveness, that old fashioned way to treat her like a lady and his expression when he gave in to her, making her feel like she could conquer the world with a pout. Instead she had ended up with a 3-D vision of something that made her a reliable source for information about his capability to carry on the family heritage.

And it was his fault. It just was. Somehow.

She was so deep in her recriminations that she didn't hear him entering her room.

"Hey"

He was dressed with black pants and a red sweater. His dark curls were still humid and his foot were bare- when he looked at her like that, with a ghost of a smile on his lips and his gaze so soft, even his soul looked bare, she thought.

"I barely recognized you," she told him "that's a good thing."

"You know, flattery will take you anywhere." he joked, rolling his eyes and pushing his hands in his pockets.

"I'm perfectly fine where I am, thank you very much." Which was true, she was fine. But it was when he was around that her kind-of-fine-but-not-really raised to the _perfectly_ level. Of course, she didn't need to admit it to herself, and he didn't need to know.

"Well, I'm not, in fact I'd rather be sitting in front of something to eat." He suggested, smiling.

"How subtle."

"I'm just hungry, and I find food reassuring."

"Why?"

"I was never really much of an insider-"

"Shocking." she mocked him with a smile.

"When I was a kid I didn't have any friends but Vanessa-"

"Yours is really a sad life." she interrupted him once again, horrified to think of Vanessa Abrams as only friend of a child.

"So my mom used to cook my favorite things to cheer me up whenever I felt cut out. A bitter day tastes better with chocolate on top."

"So you're like a woman on her period."

"Funny," he replied, patiently " but think about it, you really want someone from Brooklyn to call you out on your manners?"

"Dorota went home."

"I can cook."

"Are you implying that I can't?"

She gave him a stern look.

"I'm just saying that I'm going to cook."

She needed reassurances that everything was going to be alright, and even if it could sound stupid it reassured her to see him moving around her kitchen to cook for her something that could make her day taste better.

She had mastered the art to talk and play with her food so that people wouldn't notice her not eating, and she could do it with him too.

"Is it not good? You're not eating."

But it didn't work.

"Let's say you're not going to end up on a _Michelin_ guide very soon."

"You are…" he looked uncomfortable and she felt scared "perfect. You know."

Blair shrugged hoping to look unaffected while trying to fix the words in her mind.

"A diet is absolutely unnecessary." He added.

"I'm just trying to keep my figure. I need to fit into a wedding dress in two months."

"I'm sure it will fit even if you don't starve yourself to death!" he insisted.

"It will not!"

"This is absurd. Why should you get fat all of a sudd-" he froze with his fork in the air and looked at her, home kept her gaze on the table.

"Oh, God. Are you…" he couldn't say it "you know?"

She looked like a guilty child, and he tried to face this new information calmly. That was why Dorota was so worried, because she was starving herself and her baby while trying to pretend her life was just as always was.

"Did you see a doctor?"

"Not yet." Her voice was a whisper even if the house was empty and no one could hear them.

"Did you take an appointment?"

"Who are you? My personal nurse?"

"I am your friend, and I'm worried about you." he insisted looking at her straight in the eyes. It was like there were words in those eyes and she couldn't hold his gaze. "It's not something you can ignore until it goes away, and if you are not willing to take care of yourself then someone has to!"

"I wasn't supposed to have a baby! I wasn't supposed to get pregnant until I was thirty and I was already a successful woman, then I was going to have two kids, a boy and a girl, a summer residence on the French coast and a boat named after me." She explained like she had signed some sort of deal with God.

"Well, things don't go always as planned."

"And what would you know about it?" she asked, taking her frustration out on him "You are living your dream. Your stories get published, your life is going just the right way. You can have everything you want!" she accused him, like he was leaving her behind. Her big eyes were glassy and he wanted to hold her and tell her that he was going to be there and everything would be alright but he wasn't sure she'd let him. And he couldn't tell her that she was wrong. That he was far from having everything he wanted because everything he wanted was a girl with big glassy eyes that looked scared like a child and was too blind to see that he was scared too – so scared to love her against his best judgment, so scared to not be able to stop even if he tried and tried, and just desperate to love her, even like this, half frozen outside her door, half himself away from her.

Dan reached out for her hand and held it, rubbing his thumb against the skin of her knuckles. She leaned into him until her forehead was against his shoulder and drew a breath when she felt his kiss pressed on her hair.

"I don't know what to do." she confessed in a broken whisper.

"I know, you'll figure it out." He told her "And I'll be there with you if you want."

"You promise?"

That promise wasn't his to make because that child had a father whom had every right to be there with her, to hold her hand when she was scared and schedule an appointments with a gynecologist, but he had discovered in time that he wasn't any good at deny her anything.

"Yeah," he said "yeah, I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

Blair crossed her arms under her chest looking out of the window of Dan's joke of a car.

"I'm having a déjà-vu," she said, turningher nose up "Which make the experience double bad."

Dan rolled his eyes keeping his hands on the wheel "You will agree with me that a limousine in Brooklyn could be suspicious".

To make sure Gossip Girl did not put her hands on the news , Dan had taken an appointment with a gynecologist in Brooklyn for his _wife_, and arriving in a fancy car did not suit the role of the young couple building a new life on their own. Rufus car was a better choice, but Blair was far from being happy with it.

"A car made after the eighty could work, too. See?" she said pointing with her fingers on the side of the road "That kid with the bike is going faster than you".

Dan turned his eyes for a brief moment but saw nothing "I can't see anyone."

"That's because he already passed us!"

Dan shook his head and she whined "You're too slow."

"I'm just driving safe. You're pregnant." he reminded her.

"And I'd like not giving birth in here!" she protested, but he just smiled and ignored her.

"You're the worst driver in the world." Blair decided.

"Did you try all of them?" she turned her head toward the window so he couldn't see her smile.

She was nervous about the check up and taking it out on Dan made her feel a bit better. He never really minded.

In the tiny space of his dad's car she could smell his light cologne; Blair glanced every now and then to his strong fingers around the wheel. Something in the pit of her stomach moved, and she recognized a foreigner feeling to which she was getting used more and more because of him: she felt safe.

It was hardly because of his driving, but she had no desire to look further into the matter.

In the waiting room there were four couples of different age. Giddy women with no taste for pre-maman clothes, with horrible hair or that never had a manicure in their lives, and nervous men reading the sport newspapers or talking in a conspirator way to the mother's gigantic belly.

"I hope they're not contagious." she murmured to Dan, covering her mouth with one hand.

"I'm sure your body produced antibodies by associating yourself with me."

"Probably." She reasoned "You made yourself useful, Humphrey" Blair told him.

"I lived all my life waiting for this moment." He replied pretending to be touched by her words.

"What do you have in there?" she asked looking at the bag he had carried with him, while she tried to find some decent magazine to look at. In that waiting room there were only magazines dedicated to recipesand baby clothes with way too much polyester.

"Emergency kit." he revealed her opening the bag. Blair looked at him strangely, and smiled when he handed to her the last copy of _Vogue_, _Vanity Fair _and_ Elle_. She looked at him with big eyes and took the magazines from his hands placing them on her lap.

She was engrossed in the reading when the doctor assistant's came out to call her.

"Mrs Bradley"

"That's us." Dan whispered, before smiling to the young assistant, which blushed furiously and tried to look busy reading her file.

The doctor looked quite reliable, for someone who had his consulting room in Brooklyn. He told her to lay down on the armchairand turned to take a new pair of gloves. Dan had to push her while she tried to resist, a thin whit of chip paper; in the end he had to take her and sits her on it while the doctor looked at them with a confused expression.

Dan tried to smile and the doctor nodded, imputing their strange behavior to some silly gamebetween lovers.

"Well, I guess I'd better stay out-"

"Young man," the doctor said looking at him sympathetically under his glasses "I really think that is a bit late for you to stay out of this."

Blair smiled to him, hiding face in her hands as soon as the doctor looked back at Dan.

"I suppose. It's just…" he massaged his neck nervously "My wife is kind of shy."

"Her condition gives me reasons to think that she was not so shy with you." He smiled again.

"Come, come" he encouraged him "I love young couples like you" he said, reading her file "Have you been together for long?" he asked, getting two different answers.

"No" Dan said.

"Yes" Blair said.

"I mean," Dan smiled nervously " I fall for her all over again almost every moment I spend awake, so…"

"You've got yourself a writer, lady" the doctor winked at Blair.

"Yes, I did." She was so embarrassed that she took Dan's hand affectionately and bite into his flesh with her pale nails. He barely winced.

"Tell me, how did you two meet?" he asked looking at her

What was this? Twenty questions or a medical checkup?

"Well, obviously he fell for me right away but I-"

Dan did not sound like he agreed with her, and the doctor laughed.

"_Pardon_?"

"You were an unbearable, overweening, spoiled, little-"

"I'm sorry, need I to remind you that I graced you with the honor of being an acquaintance of mine?"

"Please. I'm still thanking the Lord for such luck." He grinned.

"I don't know about Him, but you could thank me." She answered batting her long lashes at him

"Yes, my lady." He said pending one harm over his chest and bowing to her like he was her knight in shining armor.

"Now guys, let's go back to our checkup. I want nothing more than to give good news to people so in love like you two".

And with that the smile froze on both their faces. Just to come back later; when the doctor made them hear the sound of a tiny, strong heartbeat Blair reached for Dan's hand like she was about to fall from the armchair and he was the only one who could steady her.

"Can you hear it? Do you see it?" she asked him looking at the monitor. To

He just watched at their intertwined fingers and listened to the sound coming from the machine.

"Yeah" he nodded, rising his eyes look at the screen. On that screen showing confused masses he could find a whole future; if he was masochist enough to let himself do it, he could picture himself in it too, just where he was now - right next to her.

"I can see it"


End file.
